


the first stone

by zanate



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, F/M, all my interests are niche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 21:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanate/pseuds/zanate
Summary: the four loves of a lonely woman.





	the first stone

**Author's Note:**

> "let him who is without sin cast the first stone"

Princess María Teresa of Austria fell in love with King Louis of France months before she’d ever set eyes on him. 

The portrait arrived at El Escorial on a cloudy morning, shrouded in dark blue silk, upon which embroidered fleurs-de-lys glittered like stars. It was completely foreign to anything she’d seen, to the hundreds of works hanging on the grey walls of the place. Those had belonged to her father, and her father’s father before him. The King’s portrait belonged to María Teresa alone. In his corner of the room, tucked away between her mother’s somber picture and Saint Catherine’s cruel wheel, the smiling King in the portrait seemed to cast his own golden light. How fine he seemed, how gallant. His eyes appeared to look out of the frame and into the world around him, at his future bride. When no one who could guess her thoughts was around, María Teresa thought about what he’d say on the day they’d finally meet. _“You are beautiful”_ perhaps, maybe even _“I love you”._

On the day of her wedding she was farther away from her childhood home than she’d ever been, and her limbs already ached with the urge to go further and further away. The French cortege stood in stark contrast to the Spaniards, in their austere black suits and stiff lace collars. The French seemed to María Teresa like a flock of birds of paradise, feathered, beribboned and glittering from head to toe in the brightest colors. At the center of the entourage was him. She knew him by a simple glance. The way he stood and walked, expecting others to make way for him, was something she had seen in her father. The demeanor must be common to all Kings. The King noticed her looking, and gave her a brief smile.

The portrait did not do the King justice. But what plain paintbrush could compare to the flush of his cheeks, the intelligence in his eyes, the regal sweep of his forehead? It would be like holding a candle up to the Sun. King Louis was living, breathing, real. He moved through every step of diplomacy with the grace of a dancer. María Teresa felt awkward by comparison, off to one corner with her dress restricting her breathing and her heavy wig pulling her down to the very root of the earth. 

The feast tables were piled high with roasts and soups and towers of candied fruit. Each song the musicians played flowed right into the other, creating a sea of melodies, sweeping back and forth across the conversations in French and Spanish that filled the room. In between each pair of people a candle was lit, so that even in the nighttime the scene was tinged with gold. Everyone around her smiled and laughed and drank to the health of the couple, to the glory of France and Spain. All but her stepmother, her cousin Mariana, already swelling with her father’s child. She stared at María Teresa from across the table, the look in her eyes impossibly sad. 

She was taken from the feast as everyone was still eating, and every guest stood and bowed for her as they would have done for her stepmother. She was Queen now, and commanded respect. However, immediately after she had turned her back, they all sat down and carried on as if she had never been there. Four ladies dressed in French clothes took her inside the little castle where they were staying. The one in Paris, she was told, was much grander, with gold leaf covering every surface and a web of secret corridors beneath the walls. Up they went through the ornate staircase, to a room smaller than the one María Teresa had spent her childhood in, but with larger windows. Layer after layer of clothing was removed from her. Not until all was off and she was standing in her chemise that she realized how her clothes were suffocating her. The King was yet to show. María Teresa closed her eyes and listened to the far-off sounds of her wedding fireworks, trying to imagine them. Bursts of crimson, orange and gold, reaching up to caress the black of night with glittering fingers. Great spinning wheels with spokes of fire, flaming tongues that scorched, however briefly, all that touched their path. With a click of the door the King entered the chamber, wearing only a nightshirt. She could not stop looking at him, although it made her heart beat so fast and hard against its cage of bones that it made her chest hurt for trying to contain her heart inside. In the candlelight, she could make out the outline of his body through the fabric, and suddenly felt ashamed of how much she wanted it, to see it, to touch it. He had turned her inside out with his blue eyes, taken the child in her and turned it into something other, unfamiliar, nesting in her brain. Without ever touching her or speaking with her his slender hands and scarlet tongue had taken her virginity, way back when he was only a portrait, a painter’s dream in a gilded frame. She could not stop looking at him. He would not meet her eyes, and moved through the ceremony with a businesslike manner about him. 

They were led into bed. They were given a blessing. They were left alone. 

Only when the King was sleeping and María Teresa was looking at the stars through the window did she realize that every time she tried to kiss him, he had moved his head away.

**Author's Note:**

> hey yeah so this is extremely niche and also kind of a cross between the show and what went down in real history so since this chapter takes place before the show's timeline it's based a lot more on history. marie-thérèse and louis got married in 1660. her family (the hapsburg dynasty) was all sorts of fucked up around the time period, and her dad, felipe iv of spain, married his niece mariana of austria after the death of his first wife, elisabeth of france. maite and louis were actually double first cousins, since felipe iv was anne of austria's brother and elisabeth of france was louis xiii's sister. the more you know, etc.  
> also:  
> [here](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Teresa_de_Austria#/media/File:Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez_030.jpg) is what i pictured maite to be wearing at the wedding  
> [here](https://a-very-handsome-door.tumblr.com/image/160631047574) is louis's portrait
> 
> anyways hmu on [tumblr](https://mcntespan.tumblr.com)


End file.
